My  fourteen year old daughter exploded with excitement shooting into the dining room from the family room with her bubbly tone verbose,

 

“Mom, I just love Rom Coms!”

 

I had no idea what she was talking about, so I just nodded in compliance and responded with a simple but questionable, “ Ok, honey?”

 

I was busy putting together mini diaper cakes for my sister’s baby shower.  It was her first baby and apparently my mother cosigned in her having a $1200.00 breakfast extravaganza, of which I volunteered to plan.  And so, in my dining room, which acted as my everyday craft room, I swiped my scissors to the right, dragging purple ribbon between my thumb and blade to make the straight ribbon curly. This was my current routine and my daughter seemed to interrupt my progress as she splurged a language upon me that I did not understand.

 

“MOM!”

 

“Yes, daughter.”  I responded softly.

 

“Did you hear what I said?”  Her voice was now in the teenagery tone that every mother hates.  You know the one that you want to smack the child into the reality that you are still the parent and that their opinion of the world around them doesn’t really matter until they grow up, get married, and have teenagers of their own.   That tone.  The tone where your child thinks that everything that she says is the most important thing; that everyone should listen, and pay attention.  You know, that whiny tone.  The tone that she can’t help to speak because everything is about her.  So I humor her.

 

“Yes, Lit, but I have no Idea what a Rom Com is. . .”

 

“Mom, a Romantic Comedy?”  she responds with her matter of fact teacher voice.  Then she  proceeds to tell me all about the movie she just watched on Netflix about a girl liking a boy and reading love letters that her little sister sent without her permission.  On and on she went and I fell for it. I fell into the trap. The original motive for her excitement was just a door to get me to listen to what she had to say about this movie, to which I really didn’t care about because I had to curl ribbon.

 

My daughter is very sweet.  She speaks fast in this valley girl way. Everything is exciting, current, and pertinent.  Everything shines with happy rainbows and unicorn glitter.  She is a very lovely young lady but I don’t understand what she is saying most of the time.  Although she ignites with excitement about things that seem trivial to me, she has a calm spirit.  I want to understand her, but it is like she speaks a different language in her natural tongue.  The thing is though, I love her regardless if I understand her.  And because I love her, I try very hard to understand her.

 

I asked the Holy Spirit, what is it that she is saying to me and why does she always sounds like a valley girl?  I mean, we live in New Jersey and Lit ( that is short for Alyssa) talks in that “Totally Tubular” or “Becky look at her butt!” repertoire. The girl has never seen a surfboard  up close!  I just don’t get it!

I could hear the Lord laughing at me like my dad used to laugh at me when the kids were young.  My dad would just laugh when the kids were over to the house and acting up.  I would yell at them “don’t do that!  Sit down.  Get off of that.  Put it down, I said . . . put . . . it  . . . down!”

I would ask my dad why he was laughing at me.  He would explain to me that I was the same way when I was young.  My kids reminded him of the way my siblings and I were when we were little.  He just laughed because it brought back so many memories.  My dad would just say to me “Take it easy, take it easy.  Enjoy this time because it goes fast.  Just take it easy Mar.” (Mar is short for Marrie).

So, I remember the words of my father and I  take a step back and see that I don’t take enough time to enjoy the experiences of being a mother. I have to learn to take it by stride.  I’m a little uptight.  Not all the time but there is something making me up tight.  I know, it’s the stuff.  All the stuff that I have to do. All the stuff on the to do list.  All of the request, all of the commitments, all of the cleaning, all of the activities, and  all of the baby showers!

 

I breath with frustration and I ask the Lord, “What are you laughing at!?”

 

No one likes to be laughed at.  It makes them feel inadequate.  It makes them feel like what they do is not important or meaningful.  Everyone wants to feel needed or have some type of sense of belonging, right?  It is kind of cruel to make someone feel like what they have to share or say is not of importance.

 

Take it easy Mar.

 

The Lord smiles at me, in the way a parent would his young child who has just learned something new.  His head tilted to the side, I recognize the comfort of his arms opened wide, and a forgiving embrace waiting for me to run into it. “Oh.” I say.

I get it. We are the children full of excitement about the trivial things of life.  We are too young to understand or realize that there are more pressing things, more glorious adventures that await outside of our reality.  We are too young to grasp the concepts of our Father in Heaven.  However, it doesn’t make our perception any less real to us. We are excited because our reality is real to us.  It is important, relative, current, and pertinent.  We speak a different language then our father but because he loves us, he makes every effort to understand us.  He listens to us.  He is humored by us.  He is concerned and encouraged by us all at the same time.  He sees the potential of who we are to become, and what we will accomplish.  He is frustrated by us, but he also puts in us the necessary values needed to live our lives.  He cares for us.  We are his children and extensions of himself.

 

Again, another understanding . . . We are extensions of our Father.

 

Alyssa is an extension of me and I now understand why the Lord was laughing at me.  She is a little me.  I asked why does she talk like that?  The Lord answered me and told me that was the way that I  talked.

 

“Uh, uh.”  I replied in disbelief.

 

“Uh huh,”  replied the Lord

 

I don’t hear it, but other people do.  My daughter picked up the speech patterns, rhythms, and unique signatures of my voice.  Her words are a foreign language to me, but her valley girl flava comes from me.  We live in Jersey but I am from the valley, Hanford California.  The girls there really did say things like “Whatever,” and “That is totally Awesome!”  I never knew that when kids during my high school years said I talked like a white girl were referring to my Hilary Banks California twang. Oh, my daughter is an extension of me!  So, I ask the Lord;  Why am I annoyed with her continuous banter?

 

The Lord answered “You are annoying, but I enjoy you.”

 

Thinking.  How rude.  Thinking some more.  I’m annoying?

 

Here goes the thing that I am understanding.  Language is complicated.  People can speak the same language but not be able to communicate.  Why?  Because their connections to the words, references, and interpretations are individual conceptualized by their unique experiences.  What one person says, may not be what they mean.  What one person hears, might not be what was said.  When the Lord says that I am annoying the Holy Spirit has to interpret that to me.

Most of us are annoying to the Lord, but this is not a bad thing.  Get this.  We, his children,  are just talking and talking and talking about what excites us about this current world.  The whole time the Lord, who has a better understanding of purpose, a clearer vision of the universe, and the perspective of eternity, is trying to communicate to us that the things of this world are meaningless.  But yet, we still talk about what we are going to do, what we are going to build, and what we are going to get.  The Lord again, tries to communicate with us the true meaning of this life, but we don’t want to listen.  We want to be listened to.  When we feel like we are not being listened to, we pout.  We storm upstairs in an unforgettable rage,  stomping our feet vigorously, slamming doors,  throwing our discouraged selves onto beds, and we begin sobbing into the pillows that the Lord brought for us.  This is what we do.  Typical teenage behaviors.

So, to say that we are annoying, means that we are frustrating.  The Lord is trying to teach us, but we won’t listen.  Why won’t we listen?  We don’t listen because we think that we know everything.  This is why the Lord cannot speak to us in a natural language.  He cannot tell us directly what we are doing wrong, he has to let us go through the process of growing up.  Our Lord knows that we have to have  the experiences ourselves in order to learn the language that he is speaking to us.  He has found another way to communicate with us though.  He communicates through love.  He loves us,  He cares for us.  He provides for us.  He spends time with us.  He delights in us.  He encourages us.  He is there for us when we ask for help.

This is the way the Lord is teaching me how to be with my children.  Just, take it easy he says to me.  Love them he says to me. The Lord talks to us in love through the spirit, connecting with us in the spirit.  This is the way he communicates with us so that we do not misinterpret what he is trying to teach us.  Communicate with the Lord in the spirit takes great humility on our part.  We must grow to the maturity of understand that we do not know everything and sometimes we just have to listen.  We have to try to absorb what God is telling us.  We may not understand everything, but he is knocking on the bedroom door.  He is telling us that it is ok to come out.  It is ok to come out and talk to him.

I love my daughter.  She is a part of me and she is an extension of me.  Although I said she is annoying, that is not really what I mean.  I am just learning how to be more like my father in Heaven.  I am trying to be the listener.  I am trying to take it easy and find the delight in her light, in her excitement about the unknown.  However, I am also very concerned about her greenness to this deceitful world that she will soon have to enter as a young adult.  I need to prepare her, teach her, and warn her.  I am realizing as the parent, with the experience that I have in this world, that I cannot always protect her from the necessary tests she has to endure.  Her burdens, mistakes, and failures will make her into the strong woman that she was always destined to become.  So, I smile.  I listen attentively to her explaining in intricate detail about the girl, who wrote the letters to a boy.  I now know what a Rom Com is.  I am now more connected to my daughter.  We now have a common conception and interpretation of Rom Com.  She feels listened to and I feel comforted by the fact that she is like me when I was young.  Her spirit is one to be admired and beloved.  Oh the possibilities of her future!

 

Then Lord says to me: “Now, if I can only get you to stop curling ribbon!”